


Sharp and Open

by Portrait_of_a_Fool



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (2011)
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Insanity, M/M, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:46:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6105340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Portrait_of_a_Fool/pseuds/Portrait_of_a_Fool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki escapes from Asgard and Thor is sent to retrieve him yet again, with the order to bring back a corpse this time. Thor knows he cannot do that, but it doesn't stop him from taking the opportunity to track Loki down anyway. What he finds is a wreck of the man he knew, but Thor has never been able to look at Loki and <em>not</em> love him. It's no different now and no matter how hard Loki tries to push him away, Thor is determined to hold on even harder. To never let him go or let him down again. (Canon-Divergent AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharp and Open

**Author's Note:**

> So. This fic was written for a friend over on LJ quite a few years ago and I didn't get around to moving it over here until, well... now. She requested some kind of specific things that I can no longer remember, but basically she wanted an AU with ya know, stuff in it. God, that's awful. I'm sorry!
> 
> It's not too terribly canon compliant, especially with _The Avengers_ though it does (vaguely) mention things from that movie. It has absolutely nothing in common with _Thor: The Dark World_ , however (this was written before that movie was even released). In short, this is indeed a canon-divergent AU that weaves in some elements/aspects of actual Norse mythology as well. I hope that if you decide to read this wee beastie, you enjoy it. Thank you.

_Lose me in the dark  
Please do it right  
Run into the night  
I will lose myself tomorrow  
Crimson pain  
My heart explodes  
My memory in a fire  
And someone will listen  
At least for a short while…_

— The Cure   
“The Figurehead”

**I**

When Loki escapes from Asgard, Odin is furious. He roars like a mad bull and stomps the floor of the throne room so hard the floor shakes. It’s the angriest Thor has ever seen his father and he steps back from his rage before he can stop himself.

“This time _I_ will find him!” Odin declares, fist lifted toward the sky. Like the floor, it shakes as well.

“No, Father, let me,” Thor says.

He can hear a note of pleading that wants to creep into his voice. It rests beside his heart that trembles somewhere in his throat. He knows if Odin goes to Earth and finds his brother then he will bring back a corpse. The idea paralyzes Thor because no matter what horrible atrocities his brother has committed in the past; he is still _his brother_. Living in a world without him is not a world Thor wishes to live in. Despite all the wrong Loki has done—and it has been great—Thor loves him all the same. He cannot help it. He remembers the man Loki was; the man he believes he could be again and it gives him pause every time his love totters onto the precipice of becoming hatred.

Odin’s eye bores into Thor’s skull and he wants to fidget like he is nothing more than a child again, but he will not let himself. He raises his chin higher and meets his father’s gaze. 

“Please,” Thor adds before Odin can speak.

“You did such a _fine_ job of it last time,” Odin scoffs. He almost sneers. His father can be harsh at times, but he’s always been fair. He’s angry now and more than disappointed in Loki for all that he’s done—Odin has officially disowned him and all of Asgard knows it, too. Thor, however, will never disown Loki; in his heart of hearts he knows that. 

Odin steps down from the raised throne dais and walks across the great hall to where Thor stands, defiant, yet wanting to flinch from the glare in Odin’s eye. He stops three feet from Thor and studies him for an eternity; until Thor is about to lose this battle of wills and look away at last.

Then Odin speaks, a long, gnarled finger pointed at Thor’s chest as though he knows where his big talk is coming from. “If you find him this time, I expect a corpse to accompany you back to Asgard. He cannot be allowed to go on. Am I understood, my only son?”

Thor swallows, but nods. “Yes, Father, your words will be heeded.”

“Good,” Odin says. He waves his hand toward the great double doors of the royal hall. “Then go and make good on your word.”

Thor nods and watches as one of Odin’s ravens—Muninn—alights on his shoulder, staring at him with its oil-drop eyes. Thor is only glad it’s not one of the slavering wolves; beasts that answer only to his father and wish to devour anyone or anything else in their path. If not for his will, they would have destroyed him and Loki both as children. Loki always feared them more than even Thor; especially the white wolf, Geri.

“Yes, Father,” Thor says again. He tears his gaze from the peering, prying eyes of the raven and walks away. His boot heels sound heavy in the great room and his very soul feels as weighted. He cannot do what his father asks and he knows what that will mean for him.

**II**

It takes Thor over a year to find Loki. He visits major cities all over the world, starting with Venice, Italy since he recalls Loki having once mentioned that it really is a marvel. Even then, Thor had seen the slight curl to his lip, his irritation with himself over being curious about anything to do with humans. Still, he thinks that maybe he will find his wayward brother there, but it’s a fruitless task.

His travels lead him back to the United States where he revisits major cities there. He walks through the ruins of New York City and helps people where he can in their efforts to rebuild. After looking in on Tony and Pepper, making sure to keep a safe distance, Thor moves on to Brooklyn where he checks in on Steve. There’s a part of him that wants to go to his friends and ask for their help or at least advice, but he doesn’t take that step.

Everyone wants Loki’s head on a pike, everyone but Thor anyway and while he understands their outrage and disgust where Loki is concerned, he cannot—will not—allow them to hunt him down like a dog. Thor finds himself more inclined to protect him and if that means forsaking his friends, both new and old, in the name of that then he will. So many times Loki protected him before he turned ugly and spiteful—something Thor still doesn’t understand—and he feels honor bound by those times and the affection he still feels.

Thor is at his wit’s end by the time he finally catches a glimpse of Loki on a television screen in a motel room one night. He’s flipping through channels, looking for a football game or some other interesting sporting event. Barring that, he’d be happy to settle for reruns of a soap opera—any soap opera. He delights in them, although he can’t say why. They’re ridiculous and awful, but he’s found quite the love for them. It’s a news program he sees Loki on though, having paused in his channel surfing long enough to take a bite of his Chinese food.

The lovely female reporter is telling the story of a tragic sugar refinery fire that has taken place in a small Alabama town that’s made national news. An explosion, followed by a wall of flames, claimed the lives of 32 people in one fiery gust of hot, sugary air. Thor frowns at the loss of so many lives in such a fell swoop and chews noisily while he listens to the rest of the report. The reporter is standing at an intersection of two small town roads and in the distance, the smoldering remains of the factory send smoke scented like burnt sugar curling into the air. A few people pass behind her on their way to wherever it is small town people go.

Loki is coming down the sidewalk towards the camera, head ducked and dark hair blowing around his face from beneath a poor looking hat. He’s dressed like anyone in a small town would dress. He’s got on a grease-stained trucker cap with the Chevy emblem embroidered on the front in faded blue thread, dark blue jeans with red mud on the cuffs and heavy work boots. A tired old flannel shirt flaps around Loki’s rail-thin body, covering a t-shirt that looks even more tired, but still legibly bears the name of someone called Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Thor wouldn’t recognize Loki at all, but at the last moment before he steps out of the frame to cross the street, he spares a glance for the lovely reporter. It’s undoubtedly him, Thor would know his brother’s face anywhere, even if it is partially hidden by the ragged royal blue bill of his cap. Still, it takes him aback to see Loki’s pale and hollowed out cheeks; he has definitely gotten thinner and fairer. He’s almost translucent he’s so pale. He looks wan and sickly. It’s Loki’s haunted eyes that give Thor the greatest pause though. There’s no malice there now, no anger or mockery, only sorrow and madness.

Thor sits up straight with a jolt that dumps his mandarin chicken onto the carpet of his room as the reporter signs off from her location. _Now, back to you in the studio, John and Nancy._

He gets off the bed, stomping the Chinese food further into the carpet with his heavy boots and grabs his hammer. In his shock, he did at least manage to catch the name of the town. He needs a map if he’s to be going to Hound’s Run, Alabama; a town with a population of a mere 804 souls now that 32 have passed into the Great Beyond.

**III**

Thor touches down in a hail of wind and thunder about 50 miles from Hound’s Run so as not to alert Loki to his presence. He’s not far from the Alabama state line, in a small Mississippi town called Grenada. With a deep breath, he takes off walking after a quick look at his map. He could’ve landed damn near on top of Loki now that he knows where he’s at, otherwise he’s incredibly difficult to find when he isn’t leaving a wake of destruction behind him.

Thor isn’t certain what he is going to do once he is face-to-face with his brother. He’s not sure if he can stand to look into his eyes and see the hungry ghosts of insanity dancing way down in their depths. He walks on and decides that he will make up his mind when he gets there. It’s all he can do.

It’s mid-morning by the time Thor passes the sign welcoming him to Hound’s Run. It amuses him to see that someone has used the sign as target practice, peppering the metal with buckshot. He throws his head back and laughs up at the bright blue sky as he walks onward. The sound sends a small covey of quails bursting from their cover in the roadside brush and Thor startles at the sudden commotion. When he sees what it is, he only laughs again then stops long enough to roll up the sleeves on his pale blue chambray work shirt—Loki isn’t the only one of them who’s had to dress to blend in.

The closer he gets to the town itself, the more he can feel Loki’s presence. It’s faint and cold though. Loki’s not used much of his magic at all and it’s been a while since even the faintest glimmer of it touched the air of this place. Thor feels a wash of relief at that even though it will make finding Loki that much more difficult. He hadn’t discounted for a moment that Loki perhaps was the cause of the sugar refinery fire. Thor has hoped all along it wasn’t his doing, perhaps the beginnings of a much bigger plan, but now he knows.

He asks around town about Loki, describing him instead of using his name since he’s probably using an alias. It’s at the small local general store he gets his answer at last.

“Strange feller, him, real quiet,” the cashier tells Thor. She gives him her best gap-toothed smile and Thor is charmed a bit, truth be told. She’s got that slow, syrup drawl of the south in her voice and soft brown eyes. A sweet girl, he thinks. She’s more than happy to talk to him, it’s a slow morning and she likes what she sees, Thor’s no fool when it comes to such things.

“Seems real sad though, least I think so,” the girl—Charlene, her nametag says—continues before Thor can ask any questions of his own. He finds her to be a veritable fount of information, too. As she talks, his stomach sinks lower and lower, but he pays attention, hanging onto every word. “Some folks says he ain’t right in the head, you know? And maybe he ain’t, I ain’t one to talk ‘bout none of that anyways. He’s always nice as can be to me, in his own way. I reckon you’d call ‘im eccentric, ‘cept he ain’t rich enough for such a word. Least that’s what my maw-maw always used to say. He comes in here buyin’ beer most evenings and some mornings, too. Other times, he buys himself some whiskey, maybe a fifth of vodka Bit of a drinker, that one. Course most people ‘round here’s drinkers. Ain’t got much else to do, nosirree, Bob. Why you lookin’ for ‘im? If you don’t mind my askin’, that is.”

Thor finds himself bothered to hear such things, although he’s not at all sure who this _Bob_ the girl refers to is. It’s no matter though, what matters are the words she’s used to describe Loki: poor, sad, drinker. Then there’s the matter that even these people; people Thor is sure he doesn’t interact with much—or at all, when he can help it—have seen he’s gone mad.

“I’m his brother,” Thor says in answer to her question. Charlene raises her eyebrows at that and tilts her head, studying him, looking for any family resemblance.

“Y’all’re built all kinds’a different, but I reckon I can see it all the same. It’s in the cheek bones and the shape of your eyes, I think,” Charlene says. “I’m guessin’ he don’t know you’re comin’ to call on ‘im?”

Thor is ridiculously gladdened to hear such a thing, even from a stranger and he gives her a smile for that. He shakes his head in the negative at her other question though. “We’re… estranged… have been for far too long now,” Thor tells her. He sees no harm in sharing that much with this helpful, beautifully earthy girl. “I am here in an attempt to make things right between us at last.”

Charlene frowns, but nods. “Yeah, me and my youngest brother’s like that. It’s real hard when you get on the outs with family; it hurts like all hell.” Her eyes go sad and even softer as she glances up at Thor again. “Whatcha gonna do if… well. That ain’t none of my business. But. Well, I hope things work out for you, mister.”

“Ask your question, if you must,” Thor tells her. He’s in a hurry and still hasn’t gotten the information he’s looking for, but he can repay this woman’s generosity with some of his own.

“Oh,” Charlene says. She hesitates for another moment, but finally asks, “All I’s gonna ask you is what you’re gonna do if you can’t set things straight with ‘im. Like I said, it ain’t none of my business and I ought not to go stickin’ my nose in it.”

“If I cannot make things right with him then I fear all is lost,” Thor tells her as he stands straighter. It pains him to say it, but he knows it’s true.

“That’s about the saddest damned thing I think I ever heard,” Charlene says. “It’s real poetic, too. You a writer or somethin’?”

Thor laughs at that and shakes his head. “Now, I need you tell me one more thing, if you can, Charlene.” She nods, eager to provide more information if she has it. “Can you tell me where he lives?”

“Sure can, my Aunt Gretchen lives out yonder-ways by him,” Charlene tells Thor with another of those lovely, charming gap-toothed smiles of hers. She leans forward and starts talking: “Now, what you’re gonna wanna do is hang a left outside the door here…”

**IV**

A couple of hours later finds Thor on the far side of town where the pavement becomes gravel roads and rural residences are set way back into the deep piney woods. There’s a small trailer park set back there, too; a place that offers cheap rent and no questions asked. Loki’s trailer is the one at the back of the scattered, willy-nilly lot. It’s off to itself, looking secluded and lonely nestled in a half-ring of tall, dark pines.

It’s the day before Christmas, but the southern air is warm and balmy against Thor’s skin. He stands just within the half-ring, beneath the drooping shadows of the needled branches high above his head and watches the trailer. Everything smells like sweet earth and pine sap, deep smells of the secluded world he’s walked into here. It’s far away from any cities and as he keeps his watch of the place, Thor comes to understand that Loki hasn’t come here to merely hide; he’s come here to _disappear_. In a big city he could’ve faded away and been just another face in the crowd, but here he can be more than invisible. There is no one who can jostle him, there aren’t crowds enough for that. There is only the slow, steady-on life of the rural south and a quiet-quiet devoid of most any human sound. In Hound’s Run, Alabama there is only the soft sigh of a humid December breeze and the far away call of a bird deep within the forest that butts up to the rear of the trailer.

Thor sways with the calm rhythm of this sleepy place and feels his eyelids droop with tiredness for the first time since he began this last leg of his long journey. He’s almost asleep on his feet when a soft thump of feet on carpeted plywood reaches him. Instantly, he’s awake and alert, watchful as he eyes the blacked-out windows of the trailer. At last he moves and is about to take the first of the six steps up to the door when it’s flung open with a bang. In front of him, for the first time since he returned him to Asgard, is his brother. Once they’d returned to Asgard, Loki was dragged away from his sight and no matter how many times he asked or even outright _raged_ , no one would tell him anything.

Loki’s face is even paler in the gloom of the pines, his eyes lost beneath the bill of different cap and he almost looks _sick_. All the same, Thor feels pleased to see him. He doesn’t like admitting it, not now, not after all that Loki’s done to him and to others, but Thor has never stopped missing him.

There’s a black bag of trash in Loki’s hand and when he sees Thor, he drops it. The bag hits the top doorstep with a rattle and clatter of bottles and cans inside it. Something breaks, a brittle, crunching sound as it lurches awkwardly the rest of the way down the steep steps to land at Thor’s feet where it splits open. Liquor bottles and beer cans wink and glitter in the filtered sunlight, the torn plastic wrappers of microwave dinners flutter in the breeze, rattling like insects in a jar. Time itself seems to slow down and for the briefest of moments, it feels as though it stops altogether.

Then Loki takes a stumbling step backward and says, “No. No. _No!_ ” His eyes are wide beneath the brim of his hat and swimming in the bruised circles beneath them.

“Loki,” Thor says as he leaps up the doorsteps.

Loki only shakes his head and backs away further, sidestepping to the left before turning to back away from Thor who is advancing on him. His hand is tight around the handle of his hammer, waiting for Loki to grab a weapon and come at him. He doesn’t want to hurt him and he is _tired_ fighting this fight of theirs. It’s a fight he has never truly understood and that’s something which pains him.

“You weren’t supposed to find me, not this time,” Loki says as he continues backing away. “ _Go away!_ ”

“I cannot do that,” Thor says. He stops advancing toward Loki and studies him. The trailer’s windows have all been covered over, the only light is coming from the still open front door and a tiny little Christmas tree wrapped in multicolored lights.

Loki seems to gather himself and push his surprise and… fear, Thor thinks it is, down. That, too, hurts him; to see his brother so afraid of him now. It should have never come to this. It gladdens him just the smallest bit though when Loki lifts his head and meets his gaze. He looks out of place and small in his worn out human clothes; they’re so common on him. Loki has always been an elegant and stylish dresser, regardless of which world his clothes came from. He dressed befittingly of a sorcerer of his magnitude. Now he looks like a lost boy standing in front of Thor. There is a spark in his eyes now though, something that wasn’t there on the television screen when Thor first saw him.

“Have you come to kill me then?” Loki asks. He tries to smirk, but it falters. The spark in his eyes doesn’t die though. Thor takes heart in that; his brother isn’t totally beaten down yet and that’s good. “Odin would not send you to simply retrieve me this time. I’m no fool.”

Loki steps toward him and drops to his knees before him, which surprises Thor. He stays where he’s at even though he doesn’t trust Loki much at all and waits. Loki cuts his mad eyes up to look at him and says, “Do it then.”

That makes Thor move away from him, horrified by what this means. They cannot die by human hands; a god can only die by the hand of another god. His brother has just asked him to kill him, probably because he can’t bring himself to do it on his own. Thor cannot do it though and he’s known that from the very beginning of this. He could fight Loki until the end of time, even though it would kill _him_ to do so, but he could never murder him.

“No,” he says. His voice is low, vehement as he steps back even more.

Loki stays on the floor for a long time and Thor lets him. His breathing is harsh and his fingers are twisted in the nappy carpet, but when he speaks again, his voice is hollow sounding. “Then leave me be.”

“No,” Thor says again. His voice is softer now.

Loki’s shoulders twitch as though Thor has kicked him, but he only sighs and pushes to his feet again. He turns and walks away, hands dangling loosely at his sides, dirty green strands of old shag carpet dangling from them like mermaid hair.

“What do you want?” Loki asks. His back is still turned, shoulders hunched defensively and he hums with tension as he waits for Thor’s response.

“To sit with you a while,” Thor says. The answer surprises him, but he realizes it’s the absolute truth.

“Is that all?” Loki’s voice is faint, but there’s a hint of dark amusement and something else, something strangely lonesome, lurking in it. Thor frowns at his narrow back, at the slight bumps of his spine that press against the soft cloth of his thin, faded red t-shirt.

“Yes,” Thor says. He drops his hammer then and it hits the floor with a thud that makes the walls of the trailer rattle and something fall over in the refrigerator with a tiny clink of glass.

“It’s been a long time since anyone simply _sat_ with me a while,” Loki says. There’s a hint of a sneer in his voice now, but when he looks over his shoulder at Thor, his eyes are dark pits in his face and he’s not sneering at all.

There are stories, both before and after Loki turned on Asgard, that Thor has never known and thinks now he never will. The _before_ things are the ones that drove Loki to do all the wrong he committed in the first place. Thor’s had time to think on these things and he feels shame for never asking—for never even noticing—any of those things until it was far too late. He doesn’t know or have any idea what may’ve caused Loki so much pain it drove him insane and hateful with that insanity. He does know that whatever it was, it must have been great and likely still gnaws away at him. Almost all of the fire has been burned out of Loki now and Thor is almost certain that it was extinguished after he returned with him from Earth the last time. While he feels shame for the _before_ , he looks at Loki now and feels guilt for the _after_.

Loki meets his eyes and there is nothing in them; no warmth, no love, no hatred and worst of all, that spark is gone as well. “Beer?” is all he asks.

“Sure,” Thor says. “May I sit?”

“I care not what you do, Thor,” Loki says as he walks across the linoleum floor to the refrigerator rattling away against the far wall of the kitchen. His boots make faint sticking sounds as he goes and Thor listens to him moving with a heavy heart. 

Loki has just stepped back into the living when a stronger gust of wind catches the trailer door and whips it shut with a resounding _slam!_ Thor jumps from the sofa and moves for his hammer and Loki’s soft, bitter laughter follows him through the darkness.

“Surely you aren’t afraid of the _wind_ , o’ great god of thunder,” Loki says from behind him. There’s the squeak of old, worn springs when he settles on the other end of the sofa. Thor stands where he is as his eyes adjust to the dim light of the faery lights on Loki’s sad little Charlie Brown Christmas tree. “I thought you wanted to _sit_ for a while.” Loki’s voice is grating now, tense and annoyed. Thor can hear him tapping his fingers on his knee. Then comes the wet, hissing _psst_ of a can opening.

“I do,” Thor says and he turns, goes back to the sofa and sits down again.

“You thought I did that, didn’t you? That I was setting some kind of trap, hmm?” Loki asks. He sounds uninterested and looks it, too, since he’s staring at the wall as he lifts his beer for a long swallow.

“I would not have put it past you,” Thor says, hackles rising almost all at once.

“Idiot,” is all Loki says when he lowers his beer.

“Because not trusting you is the stupidest thing a person could do,” Thor says as he opens his own beer.

“Haven’t you been paying attention? I’m retired,” Loki says. He raises his beer for another swallow and drains the can that time. He licks foam from his upper lip when he’s done then repeats, “ _Idiot_ ,” before rising from the sofa to get himself another drink.

At least he sounds angry, Thor reasons. It’s better than _nothing_ and fantastic when compared to _defeated_. He listens to the _psst_ of another beer being cracked open from the kitchen. He can feel Loki’s eyes on him, tracing ley lines across the back of his skull, but he doesn’t turn to keep an eye on him. Instead, he lets Loki watch him in the twinkling lights from the tree and pretends that, for a little while, he can trust his brother again.

**V**

The silence stretches out between them and one beer drains itself into another. After rising to help himself after his first was finished and Loki didn’t protest it, Thor keeps at it. They sit with a sofa cushion between them, Loki pressed into the far end of the couch as though he’s trying to disappear into the thicker shadows there. If not for his alabaster skin, he’d come close to doing just that. Save the Christmas tree, no light penetrates the trailer and it’s incredibly disorienting. After a while, Thor can’t tell if it’s day or night; if they’ve been sitting there for hours or for weeks. The air inside is cool and Thor breathes it in while Loki’s uneasiness slips ever deeper into his bones like a damp chill the longer they sit.

He lets that damp chill slide right on in and make itself a home, convinced in his own beer-addled way that he can warm it up. Beside him, Loki makes soft, muttering sounds in the back of his throat on occasion, but never speaks out loud. Thor leaves him to whatever thoughts toss about inside his head while he thinks of a time when he knew how to make Loki smile. He used to know a lot about him; _everything_ , in fact.

They’d been teenagers growing quickly towards becoming men. It had never occurred to Thor that, as brothers, perhaps they took far too much interest in each other that way. Not at first, anyway. It had taken Loki pointing it out to him when Thor suggested they could perhaps share a dance at an upcoming ball. He’d laughed and cupped his cheek as he’d explained _why_ that was a daft idea. _Sweet though_ , he remembers Loki saying. His eyes had danced in the firelight and Thor had thought him beautiful.

Thor had loved Loki then in a way that was more than fraternal and that love has never withered away, not completely. Had he been able to, he’d have walked with his brother on his arm, not beautiful women. Even the lovely girl he met on Earth his first time here could not stand up in the face of that. Oh and he had loved her—and always would, at least a bit—but given the choice, he’d have chosen Loki. Ultimately, he supposes, he did that anyway because he’s been on Earth over a year now and never has he darkened her door or called her on the telephone. He’s been looking only for this: his brother sitting next to him again. This silence is agonizing though, it is an echo sounding in the rift between them and the company is forced. Thor still does not want to get up and walk away. 

He considers leaving anyway, but gets up, grabs a beer and opens it. Thor sips and realizes he’s lost count of how many he’s had just as he’s lost track of time in this vortex dressed up as a trailer home. He could go back to Asgard and face his father’s wrath. He would be punished, but he doubts he would be exiled, disowned or imprisoned. Odin really would come for Loki then though and Thor cannot bear the thought; he’s seen the punishment his father metes out to those he feels deserve it. So, yes, he could go home—if he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to. He can wait out this dreadful silence with the patience that has taken him far too long to learn, but is his now.

He allows himself to sink back into thoughts of that past again to pass the razored quiet more easily. He remembers Loki whispering in his ear, _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , as they moved together in the darkness of Loki’s quarters. It was the last time he ever feel his brother moving with him, the last time he ever tasted the sweat and magic of Loki’s skin on his tongue. It was the very last time he ever heard him say those words.

The next day, Loki disappeared without so much as a goodbye. _To continue his training as a mage_ , is what Thor was told, but he hadn’t believed it because he couldn’t believe Loki would leave without even a farewell. When Loki had returned, he’d been drawn looking and uncommunicative. Thor had gone to him the night of his return, glad to see him and anxious to hold him again. Yet, when he’d reached for Loki, he had flinched away and said, _No. Never again_. Thor had been stunned and hurt. _Why?_ he’d demanded. Loki had shaken his head and looked at him with such sadness that it had made his breath catch. _I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not anymore,_ is all he said.

Thor never got his questions answered and Loki never touched him—or anyone, to the best of his recollection—again unless it was in anger or to offer a helping hand. For a long time he was distant and withdrawn from everyone, but slowly he’d come back. Or at least Thor had thought so, but he knows now he was wrong. He’d kept his hopeless little love to himself because he didn’t know what else to do. The wound scabbed over and he’d been glad to at least be able to stand side by side with his brother and fight with him. He couldn’t have dreamed up a better compatriot than Loki back in those days. Those times are also parts of the _before_ that shames Thor because he hadn’t even tried to see it—any of it—then. His brother always has been a clever actor and an even better manipulator, especially when it comes to him. Thor rolls all of that around in his mind like something shiny with poison and swallows it down with bitter American lager.

Three beers for him and five for Loki—he thinks—later, Loki takes his hat off to lay it on the arm of the sofa. “Have you sat long enough yet?” he asks.

“No,” Thor says. “I have not sat long enough. Is that all you have to say to me?”

“Not all, but it’s enough,” Loki says. His voice sounds dusty and the silhouette of him at the end of the couch is motionless. He’s still staring at the wall and Thor thinks he’s done that since he came and sat back down all those hours and beers ago. He wonders if Loki even blinks.

“Wait, there is a bit more, pardon me,” Loki says calmly. Thor lifts his head a bit more, feeling hopeful. The feeling rises more when Loki at last turns to look at him. He breathes out softly then shouts, “ _I don’t want you here!_ ”

Loki’s bellow makes Thor jump and slosh beer over the top of his hand. He recovers quickly though and snarls right back, “Well, I’m not leaving!”

“Fine,” Loki says and he actually does growl, something low and venomous in the back of his throat. “Fine,” he says again, almost whispering it.

“That’s all? You give up so easily?” Thor asks. He’s clenching his beer so hard the can is crushing in his fist and he brings it to his mouth for an angry swallow. “What’s happened to you?”

“Many, many _delightful_ things,” Loki says then he giggles and carries on in a breathless, rollercoaster sing-song tone almost like a chant, “First, I got a pony. Then I got a doggy. Finally, because I was extra good, I got a big, slithery serpent But I can’t ride my pony or pet my doggy or feed vermin to my serpent. No, no, they’re mine, but not to keep, only to carry and they all hurt so bad.”

Thor watches his silhouette and listens to the way his voice dips and rises. The tone and pitch of Loki’s voice changes with each word that squirms out of his mouth and it chills Thor to hear it. Not a single word of it makes sense.

“I don’t understand,” Thor says. He’s not sure he could understand any explanation Loki offered anyway. He’s lost his mind. He’s thought it before, but even more so than New York, this dingy trailer in the backwoods of Alabama has proven it. No one’s words should skip and skitter and live with such sickly life as those Loki has just spoken. “What is it you’re speaking of?”

Loki doesn’t answer him, he just raises his left hand gives it a quick, elegant flick at the wrist. Thor looks on in quiet wonder as the lights of the small Christmas tree writhe and twist, crawling up and over the walls in a prismatic aurora that lights the whole room with a soft, beautiful glow. It’s been so long since he’s seen the beauty Loki can make with his magic that he laughs with delight. Loki has always had magic; magic that can cause terrible things and that’s all he’s seen of it the last years. Here, now, he’s seeing the lovely side of it for the first time in too long.

“I have a confession,” Loki says while Thor tracks the swirls and whorls and dipping curls of the brightly colored lights drifting through the room. “I love their little trees. They’re so stupid and tiny and full of hope. I had to have one of my own this year. I couldn’t help myself. I thought maybe my tiny tree would…”

He trails off with an exhausted sigh that ends on a hiccupped laugh and slumps against the sofa. “I was wrong,” he says, muttering it under his breath with another jagged laugh. Loki snaps his fingers, the sound sharp as the breaking of dry twigs. The room is plunged into darkness so thick it makes Thor’s eyes hurt.

“This is all I have.” Loki’s voice crackles in the pitch blackness.

Thor’s skin crawls at the hollowness in Loki’s words. He closes his eyes, seeking more familiar darkness as a respite. Time ticks on by and outside, the wind has picked up, howling around the trailer like a screaming woman. He tries desperately to think of something to say and in the end, he gropes blindly for Loki’s arm. He finds it and when he does, he tightens his fingers around it, biting them into the soft tissue and wiry muscle there, refusing to let go. Loki goes rigid and tense then tries to jerk away from him, but Thor can’t let him slip through his fingers again.

“You have _me_ ,” he says, having finally mustered up the words that have been swimming at the periphery of his mind since Loki first fell.

He lets Loki go then and sits back to drink from his beer. He finishes it and makes his stumbling, blind way to the fridge for another. He flails and pats at the dark that’s so much like the hide of a slumbering beast he thinks he can feel the softness of fur as his fingers comb the air. At last, success is his and Thor opens the refrigerator door only to find more blackness inside. The motor is humming away, there’s power going to it and he understands that Loki didn’t just take the lights from the tree; he took all of the light inside the trailer. He fumbles out a fresh beer and closes the door again.

It’s as he’s making his way across the kitchen that Loki starts to laugh again. It starts out a gentle chuckle and rises, rises, rises to a lunatic cackle. It breaks through the darkness like shattering bones. The sound washes over Thor with a wave of such profoundly tortured sadness he thinks it will drown him. He forces himself to keep moving though, needing to find his brother in the dark and shake him, scream at him—anything—to make him stop making that awful sound. He needs to make Loki _believe_ he meant what he said only a short moment ago because he knows that is why he’s laughing like his soul is tearing itself to ribbons.

Then Loki does the most terrible thing at all: He begins to sob through his screaming lunatic laughter. Big, gulping, raging sobs that sound like they are strangling him. It’s chilling to hear it, but still—Thor keeps wading through this dark river Loki has created. Over the years, Loki has done many things to Thor’s heart, he’s made it light with affection and heavy as a stone with anger; he’s made it fall still in his chest with genuine fear once or twice and he’s left it bruised with the hurt of rejection. Never though, not once, has Loki _broken_ his heart. Not until now. Now, he feels the first splinter work itself free of the muscle that’s turned to crystal in his chest. It falls to the floor of his stomach and all the rest comes tumbling after in a bloody rain as Thor at last finds the arm of the sofa. 

The sound of those awful, ripping sobs compete with the laughter until they win. Then the laughter dies like a wisp of smoke and only the weeping of a madman is left behind.

“Stop, by all the gods, please stop,” Thor says when he finds Loki in the darkness again. He touches his trembling arm, finds his quaking shoulder and feels the way the muscles jump with the force of his weeping. This is what some people look like when they fall apart; earthquakes of pain and sadness. Thor feels all of that beneath his calloused hands.

His questing fingers brush against Loki’s wet cheek and slip through the tears glazing his face. “ _Stop_ ,” Thor begs him.

He makes an educated guess given their proximity and what he remembers from when there was light to see by and grabs Loki by the shoulders. He gets his upper left arm right at the junction, but manages to find Loki’s right shoulder. He yanks him to his feet and Loki comes easy as a boneless doll. Thor holds him up for a moment, letting him sag limply and cry that horrific crying of his before he pulls Loki close and simply _holds_ him, at a loss as to what else to do.

Loki’s wet face is in the crook of his shoulder and he can feel the hum of his weeping all through his body like a low-current electric shock. “You are not alone, brother,” Thor says as he tightens his arms around Loki. “I don’t know what has befallen you these years or before, but _I’m still here_. I would have never left you and if you will allow me to, I will not do so now.”

His words barely quiet Loki, but they do some, he’s at least heard him this time. Thor wasn’t sure before, not even a little. When Loki lifts his head, Thor doesn’t need to see him to know he’s looking at him and he is simply glad he’s moving on his own again. To see—or feel—such a collapse in a person, an utter giving up of everything as their sickness swallows them whole, was an awful thing to have witnessed.

“Liar,” Loki breathes out in his choked, wet voice. “Always such a liar.”

“I believe you’re confused, I am not the liar,” Thor says back. His voice is mild though when he speaks. He can sense that lunatic laughter lurking around them like a monster waiting to strike again.

“We’re _all_ liars,” Loki says. “Every one of us a broken promise lying at the foot of a mountain or the bottom of an ocean. Sometimes we keep promises though, some of us and when we do… Oh. I’d much rather have the lies, lies. Sweet little lies.” He falls quiet, hiccups out a smallish sob and then says, almost contemplatively, “That’s a song you know. I’ve heard it.”

That monster of lunatic laughter roars in the air around them and Thor doesn’t think he can listen to that sound again, especially not when Loki is still crying ever so gently now. He grabs Loki’s slippery face in his hands and pulls him close. “I meant what I said. _That_ was no lie,” he snarls.

Then he kisses Loki to silence the horrid laughter that waits in the wings and to feel his mouth against his once again, at last. A kiss has never been a promise and they lie as well as words, but he means this one. It’s still almost a surprise when Loki kisses him back after a second. He opens his mouth and tightens his thin fingers in Thor’s hair where they’ve become tangled. Loki’s mouth tastes of beer and the bitter salt of his tears, but there is the spicy-sweet taste of his magic there as well, just as Thor remembers it; as he remembers Loki.

When Thor drags them down to the floor, Loki goes willingly and they find their way in the dark through touch alone. Buttons are undone, zippers pulled down, boots kicked free to fly off into the dark and bump against the walls. Loki’s bones are like strange, yet familiar, carvings under Thor’s hands. The elegant Roman arches of his ribs and the sharp bones of his pelvis are all works of starved art. They burn his palms with their familiarity, although they are far more prominent than they were when they were younger. Loki was always thin, but he’s just this side of being wasted now; not quite there yet, but dangerously close.

The sharpness of Loki’s bones carve bruises into Thor’s flesh that he returns in kind with his own biting fingers. They move slow and still tear each other apart, years of anger and hurt betrayal speaking through their gnashing teeth and digging fingers. Even still, they fit together like puzzle pieces and draw it out while the wind screams around them and their teeth are streaked with red from all their biting.

Loki cries out into Thor’s mouth when he comes and it sends a shiver of pure pleasure down his spine. He swallows that sound and swears it tastes like honey and rosemary. His own orgasm ripples through him, from his navel to the base of his spine and spirals out through his body as he moans into the side of Loki’s sweaty neck.

The sound of their panting breath fills the room and gradually evens out until there is only the sound of the wind around the house again and Thor is content with the silence until Loki pushes at his shoulder and says, “Move,” in his hoarse voice.

Thor laughs softly and rolls off him to lay on the itchy, dirty carpet. Loki doesn’t speak again and for a few more minutes they rest beside each other. Loki moves first, rising from the floor to feel around for his clothes and redress himself. Thor lies there, listening to him move around in the dark as the trailer sways gently in the wind. It’s lulling Thor off to sleep despite himself, but he is extremely tired and a touch drunk on top of it all.

“I’m going to bed,” Loki says, snapping him back awake. He sounds farther away, on the other side of the room near the mouth of the hallway, Thor thinks. “If you still insist on staying here then you may sleep wherever you wish.”

Then he snaps his fingers again and light flares across the room. Thor blinks owlishly up at the drifts and curls of light dancing over the ceiling then lifts his head to watch Loki’s back retreating down the hallway.

“And if I wish to sleep beside you?” he calls.

There is a long, long pause then he hears, soft as a whisper, “Then you may sleep there as well.”

It’s all the invitation Thor needs and he rises from the nasty carpet to trot down the hallway toward the sound of his brother’s voice. The light is twirling through the whole place, darting and twining, blue and red becoming purple only to split apart again. Thor allows himself a little smile as he watches yellow and blue wisps meet to make pale green that stretches up to meet orange.

Loki is already in bed and Thor notices that the bed is fine, the most expensive and undeniably best piece of furniture in the whole place. It’s obviously been Loki’s one luxury here and he’s glad of it, but it makes him wonder what he slept on after Thor returned him to Asgard. It’s a question for another day though and for now, he simply lies down beside Loki and listens to the creak of the floor as the wind shoots beneath the trailer.

“Pay no mind to the creaking,” Loki says as Thor cocks his head. “It’s only the spiders spinning webs in the dust of creation.”

Thor turns his head to look at him and finds Loki watching him right back. His eyes are still crazy, all the way to the core, but right now they also look serene. Despite the assertion about spiders and dust, Thor takes heart in that glimpse of serenity. Perhaps the lights are making him hopeful where they’ve failed to do the same for Loki, but he’d rather not think that way.

“Then I won’t worry about them at all,” Thor says as he moves closer to Loki, slipping an arm around his waist. He wants to draw him even closer, but he doesn’t quite dare it, not yet. Regardless of what happened in the living room, he reminds himself that he mustn’t push; Loki is too damaged and frail for such things right now.

“Good,” Loki says. “Now shut up and go to sleep.”

Thor laughs and pats his side where his hand rests. “Sleep well then.”

Loki doesn’t reply, only stares at him for another moment before he slides his eyes closed, taking their storm from Thor’s view for now. It’s no wonder he always thought they were beautiful; storms have always been his love, they sing in his blood the way nothing else can.

**VI**

The next day—Thor thinks it’s day anyway, aside from the coiling aurora lights, there is nothing, just as before—he wakes cold and alone. Sometime while he slept the weather switched around and the temperature has dropped at least thirty degrees. His breath fogs from his mouth as he rises naked from the bed to go in search of Loki. He walks too fast to hide his worry that he will walk into the living room and find him gone all over again.

So, it is with great relief he finds Loki sitting on the couch in clean clothes with his dark hair curling against the sides of his neck. There’s a bottle of vodka beside him on the sofa and he’s staring at the wall again. Thor has a feeling he spends most of his days this way and the little pieces of his heart that have mended overnight threaten to come loose from their moorings again.

“Loki,” he says as he goes to him, walking right into his line of sight.

Loki blinks slowly and fixes his bloodshot eyes on him. “You should put on pants at least. It’s freezing.” 

“I will,” Thor says and then goes to do that because he is very cold. He wonders how long Loki has been up drinking today. He also wonders how long he thinks he can possibly go on doing that. He can’t let him carry on into oblivion, but for now, he lets it go.

Dressed, he sits down beside Loki and when he leans into him, Thor slips his arm around his shoulders. “It’s Christmas you know. Stupid holiday, but all the pretty lights. It’s hard to completely hate it.”

“I know,” Thor says. He likes Christmas, but he can understand why Loki would hate it. His fascination with the lights is vaguely amusing though and kind of nice, in an odd way. “Merry Christmas.”

Loki gives a noncommittal hum and then lifts his head from Thor’s shoulder for another slug of vodka before snuggling down again with a slight shiver. He’s only in a thin, albeit long-sleeved, green t-shirt with a yellow deer on it today, so he’s no doubt cold. He’s also well soused to be this physically affectionate, but Thor doesn’t care. He’ll worry about the rest later. They have the time and right now, he’ll take it.

Beside him, Loki sighs and turns his face into the side of Thor’s neck. “Can we be invisible today?” he asks. He sounds _so tired_ when he says it that Thor can only stroke his fingers through his soft hair for a moment before answering.

When he does reply, he says, “Of course, brother, of course.” He closes his eyes then and when he feels Loki’s lips curve into a smile against his skin, Thor smiles back.

The wind makes the floors groan and together Thor and Loki listen as the spiders continue to creak their webbing through creation’s dust. It’s not a bad sound at all.


End file.
